Two female political prisoners held at Qarchak Prison were attacked by boiling water on September 14, 2020.
Two women hired by Qarchak Prison warden, Mehdi Mohammadi, attempted to pour hot boiled water on political prisoners Forough Taghipour and Parastoo Moini detained in Ward 6.
The two criminals have been identified as Zeinab Ghanbarnejad (a.k.a. Zeinab Saratani) and Narges Amir Ali.
Other inmates in this ward rushed to help the two political prisoners and diverted the boiled water from pouring on them. But the boiled water poured on other inmates and burned their feet.
According to Iran’s prison laws, prisoners should be separated according to their crimes, a law that is not implemented by the Iranian regime as a way of putting more pressure on political prisoners.
The deliberate confinement of political prisoners in Iran together with violent criminals has repeatedly endangered their lives.
There have been several reports in the past month about political prisoners being beaten and threatened on orders of prison authorities, by nonpolitical prisoners.
Parastoo Moini’s mother, Zahra Safaei, who is being held at the same ward, had been previously threatened and harassed in various ways in recent weeks by the criminals hired by the warden of Qarchak Prison.
The hired inmates are supposed to incite fights and murder the prisoners.
A reliable report on August 31, 2020, indicated that Mehdi Mohammadi, the warden of Qarchak Prison, and his deputy, a woman by the name of Mirzaii, have hired dangerous common criminals to incite fights and attack political prisoners Zahra Safaei, Parastoo Moini, and Forough Taghipour, and brutalize or kill them during the fight.
The two inmates who attacked Ms. Safaei are dangerous criminals accused of robbery and drug trafficking. They are Zeinab Ghanbarnejad, 44 from Tehran, and Nargess Amir Ali, 42 from Tehran. They were sent to the room where these political prisoners are detained on August 26, 2020.
The next day on August 27, 2020, they attacked Zahra Safaei and hit her in the head and face, and only stopped when other prisoners mediated and stopped them.
Zahra Safaei has complained to the authorities of Qarchak Prison, saying: “We do not have any security here. We do not feel secure at nights in the room and not even when we intend to go to the bathrooms complex.”
Zahra Safaei was threatened on June 3, 2020 by several inmates hired by the Ministry of Intelligence. They threatened to attack and kill Ms. Safaei.
Article 69 of the prisons organization’s regulations states that: “All convicts, upon being admitted to walled prisons or rehabilitation centers, will be separated based on the type and duration of their sentence, prior record, character, morals and behavior, in accordance with decisions made by the Prisoners Classification Council.”
But the authorities deliberately place political prisoners beside criminals, endangering their lives.
In June 2018, political prisoner Alireza Shirmohammadali was murdered at the Greater Tehran Penitentiary after being unlawfully held in a ward with inmates convicted of violent crimes.
